7 Amazing Examples of Digital Twin Technology In Practice Today
Have you ever imagined how cool it can be to put down plans or create what-if scenarios for processes, products or even facilities you thought of changing before organizing yourself — putting down the resources you need for its implementation?
Now, that’s what digital twins can help you with. And that’s why many companies and industries are jumping into the bandwagon to take advantage of the opportunity. Before we look at the seven examples of digital twin technology in use today, let’s know what digital twin is. Here we go:
What is a digital twin?
A digital twin is an exact digital match of things happening in today’s world. With the help of the IoT, digital twins have been made possible. It is the Internet of Things that’s responsible for the gathering of data from around the world and making it available for the machines to reconstruct the data.
Digital twins have been there since 2002, in which Michael Grieves first introduced the term. During that time (around 2002) you could only access digital twin with the help of the Internet of Things because it was expensive and not easily accessible at the time.
With the emergence of digital twins, ideas on how to improve your business operations, increasing efficiency or even detecting an issue have is possible before you can see them happen to whatever you are trying to copy. What you learn from digital twin can be used on the original system with much lesser risk, but with a higher return on investment.
When you take your time to think about the benefits digital twin will bring to your business, you will be one of those who’ll be encouraging other companies to use the digital twin because the advantages are numerous.
And if you have been asking yourself why digital twin was included on Gartner’s best ten technology trends in both the years 2017 and 2018, the answer is that it’s that it helps most businesses improve their operations. Gartner oversaw that more than twenty-one billion sensors will be connected by 2020; thus making it possible for digital twins to carry out billions of things.
7 Examples of Digital Twin Technology
There are a couple of reasons why digital technology use digital twins, for example, most companies use it to train their employees — both newly recruited as well as the permanent employees who have been there, improving operations and testing of new products before launching them in the market.
In most cases, artificial intelligence, as well as machine learning, are made to analyze the model of operations, which is usually represented by the digital twin. It doesn’t matter the location of the facility — it still won’t matter even when the facility is located in the space.
During the early days, NASA used a forerunner — pairing technology before people knew about digital twin; to solve the problems of maintenance and repairing of systems, when you could be away from them and couldn’t get access to them in time.
And if you didn’t know, this is how the astronauts and the engineers of that time managed to save the Apollo 13 mission. Today, the engineers can figure out the next generation of vehicles at NASA, using digital twin.
Now, one of the reasons why personnel are comfortable with the Internet of Things is that digital twin has made it easy for them to simulate applications before anyone can view them live, which is a good idea. Once you have done that, you can be confident enough to apply the opportunities you have learned in the real physical environment.
Because digital twins have the capability to give a real-time view of what is taking place with the equipment or any other assets, digital twins have helped in the manufacturing industries to help lower maintenance issues as well as the optimal production input.
So, Chevron is expecting to put aside millions of dollars for maintenance, which will be from digital twin; which will help in the deployment of equipment by 2024 in oils as well as refineries.
Like in manufacturing industries, digital twins can help in the revolution of the healthcare industry and patient care. With digital twin of a patient, surgeons, as well as health professionals, can carry out their procedural duties in a simulated environment instead of carrying the same operations on a real patient. Sensors with the size of bandages can monitor patients, thus producing digital models, which is overseen by artificial intelligence, thus improving care.
During the Spring Festival Gala that was aired by China Central Television, four human hosts were accompanied by an artificial intelligence copy of themselves. This was a digital twin that was created by ObEN. These were better as compared to computer-generated avatars because of computer vision, machine learning as well as natural language processing to create the virtual copies of the hosts. There are future plans for the technology though — plans to create an artificial intelligence powered teachers, doctors as well as nurses.
Surprisingly, digital twin technology is being used to refine Formula 1 car racing. This is a sport where you should overlook any minute because every minute is essential, and with a simulation, both the driver and the car team can know the adjustments they need to make.
Interestingly, you can get a digital twin in Singapore! Imagine this: all variables going into the management of a large city. Digital twin technology can help the city planners to understand and make improvements for the efficiency of energy consumption and many other applications, which helps in changing citizens’ lives.
Now, you can see how digital twins are helping a ton of industries to improve operations. It’s with no doubt that digital twins will be needed in all sectors in the coming years. Therefore, if you are a business that hasn’t given digital twins the chance to help in improving your firm’s operations, you are missing on big opportunities.
So, leave a comment: where else do you think the use of digital twins will go next? Is it wind farms to modernize farming, or will it be used to test smartphones to help improve services? Let us know in the comments.
